


Home Movies

by fanfictiongreenirises



Series: Batman Bingo 2020 [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Batfamily, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Don't copy to another site, Fluff, Gen, Magic Tricks, Rated T because Jason, Slice of Life, batman bingo 2020, no beta we typo like mne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:55:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22543621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fanfictiongreenirises/pseuds/fanfictiongreenirises
Summary: Tim unearths a box of videos from when Dick used to create and perform magic shows for Bruce and Alfred.
Relationships: Cassandra Cain & Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Jason Todd & Damian Wayne, Dick Grayson & Alfred Pennyworth & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson
Series: Batman Bingo 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1622032
Comments: 44
Kudos: 697
Collections: Dick & Ensemble, everybody loves dick





	Home Movies

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own DC.
> 
> For the "Magic" square on my Batman Bingo card.
> 
> Massive thanks to [@batmanbingo2020](https://batmanbingo2020.tumblr.com/) for organising this and for the card.
> 
> This is my first bingo for any fandom (big yikes) so I have no frame of reference for how I'll do, but I'm aiming to complete all the squares on my card by the end of this year.

THIS FANFICTION IS HOSTED ON **ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN** , WHERE YOU CAN READ IT FOR **FREE**. IF YOU’RE READING THIS ON A DIFFERENT WEBSITE, IT WAS POSTED THERE **WITHOUT** THE AUTHOR’S CONSENT.

“Hey, Alf?” Tim called absentmindedly, rifling through the box currently in front of him. “What’re these?”

Alfred was on the other side of the vast storage room. Tim could barely see him over the stacks of boxes, crates, and unused furniture.

Alfred peered at him for a moment, probably trying to see the tapes in Tim’s hand in the darkness of the room. “There are a great many video tapes stored in the house, Master Tim. Does the box not have a label?”

“Um.” Tim flipped the lip over to check. “Must’ve fallen off?”

Alfred came closer. He only had to look at the box with its tapes for a moment before they cleared. Something like fondness – _nostalgia_ – filled his face. “Those are recordings of Master Dick’s magic shows,” he said with a smile. “He would put one on for us once a month.”

Tim felt a grin spreading across his face. “Dick had a magic phase?” He couldn’t _believe_ Dick had never told him this.

Alfred snorted. “I doubt it can be considered a ‘phase’, considering he still practises card tricks.”

_“Dick still practises card tricks and he never told me?”_

* * *

The next thing Tim did was bring the box of tapes out into the living room – the unpopular, stuffy one that only had a DVD player and VCR (and a record player and billiard board, but those weren't important right now). Actually, that was the _second_ thing Tim did. The first was dust the box, because Alfred refused to bring it into the rest of the house.

Bruce had apparently wooed many a woman in this very room – another reason why they avoided it. It was evidently arranged thus so, with large, ornate fixings. The room had a creepy haunted vibe to it (the reasons kept piling up) and Tim had vowed to one day do a séance in there.

He unpacked the box, arranging the tapes by date. Then he slid the earliest one into the video camera that had also been in the box (and working, surprisingly), connected it to the TV, and waited for it to read.

“Drink, Master Tim?”

Tim glanced up to see Alfred with a pitcher of lemonade and glass. “Thanks, Alfred,” he said as he accepted the glass. “Wanna watch with me?”

“I think I will.”

The video was no grainier than Tim had expected. The camera was set in the parlour, running for a few seconds before an absolutely tiny _speck_ of a child appeared, clothed in a cape and top hat. His face had makeup on it that Tim would’ve expected on a clown, maybe.

“He’s so _squeaky_ ,” Tim said. Judging by the dates, this had begun a month after Zucco had been captured – a few months after Robin had first been seen on the streets. “I didn’t realise he had an accent.”

“A large part of his training was to speak with a middle class Gotham accent,” Alfred told him. “He mastered it rather quickly, but preferred to speak normally when at home.”

Tim nodded, watching the tiny version of Dick pull out a rather realistic stuffed rabbit from his top hat. “Makes sense,” he said. He was just about to say something about the rabbit when a shrill voice spoke from the doorway.

“Drake, clear the room. I need to—is that _Grayson?_ ”

Of all the people to walk in, it had to be Damian. Tim practised his breathing, and didn’t respond. Alfred told Damian off instead, and Tim did his best to stifle the smirk that was threatening to grow on his face.

“Dick apparently did magic shows when he was a kid,” Tim said after a moment when the silence became a tad too oppressing.

Damian made a noise of disbelief but didn’t leave. He settled on the arm of the leather couch and leaned closer, as though he was studying a video for a case.

“He’s…small,” he said finally, dissatisfied by what he saw.

“He’s _still_ small,” Tim snorted.

“Who’re you midgets calling small?” Jason called from somewhere in the house.

“Your tiny—” Tim broke off at a look from Alfred, daring him to finish the sentence.

A second later, there was a rush of air as Jason vaulted over the back of the couch and landed heavily enough for Tim to fly up a little. He elbowed Jason in the stomach and was rewarded by a little grunt and squirm as he hit a ticklish spot.

Then Jason began laughing. “Fuck,” he said, already fishing in his pockets for change as he spoke. “Is that Goldie?”

“Yes, Todd,” Damian said from where he was still perched on the couch. Dick onscreen was now waving a wand and making things come out of the end. “It’s very juvenile. I expected better.”

“Honestly, same,” Tim said. “Like, where’s the sawing a person in half, and breaking out of cuffs? Or a straitjacket?”

“Knowing B, breaking out of cuffs would end up with the show being interrupted for another training session,” Jason said. He was watching the screen with interest as Dick finally moved on to some card trick. “But you gotta hand it to him – most of the hand work in these is nifty as fu—heck.”

On the TV, they could hear Bruce’s voice offscreen saying, “ _Yes, that’s my card,”_ and Dick letting out a whoop. He threw his top hat in the air and performed a backflip, landing perfectly to catch the top hat again and bow. There were two sets of claps before the video ended.

“Next one?” Cass’ voice sounded from next to Tim, and had Cass not been sneaking up on them for as long as they’d known her, he would’ve jumped a mile high.

Tim got up to put in the next tape, not trusting anyone else to do it right. This one was dated exactly a month after the first in Alfred’s neat handwriting.

By the time he’d settled back into his spot on the couch, another head had popped in.

“There a reason you lot are watching TV in here and not the usual room?” Dick asked, walking over to the lemonade – which now had five more glasses on the tray – and ruffling each of their heads as he went, narrowly escaping a swipe from Jason. “What’re we watching?”

“Hey, Dickface, you never told us you performed _magic shows_ for Bruce and Alfie,” Jason said.

Dick paused for a moment, then let out a laugh. “Holy shit, I’d forgotten about those.” He fished out a couple of coins from his pocket and placed them in the jar Alfred had produced, smiling at him sheepishly. “I can’t believe you kept all those tapes.”

“Of course we kept them,” Alfred said bruskly. “Lord knows there’s enough space.”

“I would’ve thought you’d be up to doing more advanced magic tricks, Grayson,” Damian said. On the TV, Dick was making a coin appear from behind Bruce’s ear.

Tim stared at the video version of Bruce, smiling at Dick indulgently and acting pleasantly shocked as Dick showed him the coin. There was something about his face that was younger beyond the expected differences that time would make: simply put, it was strange to see a Bruce who had yet to face so many of the trials he would encounter in the coming years. Tim had never known a Bruce whose smile, even in the privacy of his own home, was so freely given.

 _He looks like a baby,_ Cass signed, and Jason snorted in agreement.

“Yeah, he’s so fucking _young_. Makes now-Bruce look even older.”

 _No receding hairline,_ Cass added with a sly smile.

“No eye wrinkles,” Tim joined in.

“No _mouth_ wrinkles,” Jason said.

Damian frowned. “Father may have been more physically fit then, but he’s far better equipped mentally now,” he said.

Tim couldn’t help himself. He cooed teasingly, saying, “You’re such a suck-up, Dami.”

Before Damian could decapitate him, a voice spoke from the doorway. “Damian’s my favourite now. The rest of you are horrible.”

“Hey!” Dick protested. “I didn’t say anything!”

Bruce fixed a withering look on him. “You brought up my grey hair just this morning, Dick.”

“To be fair, B, there’s a _lot_ of it,” Tim said, and was rewarded by a flick to his ear as Bruce walked over and sat down next to Jason.

They all sat in silence for a minute or so, watching the tiny Dick on the screen run around performing magic tricks. This time he dragged Bruce and Alfred to the pool.

 _“Okay, for this next trick I’m gonna need a volunteer!”_ Dick onscreen announced. He was practically bouncing up and down on his toes.

“Did you spoon-feed him sugar before this?” Jason muttered.

“It’s good to stay limber before attempting a magic trick like this,” Dick said in a sing-song tone, like he was quoting out of a book. Jason shoved at his head.

Bruce had stepped forward, and Dick was telling him to handcuff his leg to the bottom of the pool.

“He’s not gonna do it,” Tim said.

 _He is,_ Cass said.

Tim and Jason whipped out ten dollars each, and Cass huffed before doing the same.

“Can I bet?” Dick asked.

“No,” came the three responses.

Alfred’s voice, from behind the camera, could be heard: _“Sir, I really don’t think—”_

 _“Don’t worry, Alfred,”_ Bruce responded. _“If Dick’s confident that he can do it, then I’m sure he can. Besides, this’ll be good practise.”_ He winked at Dick as he took off his shoes and coat.

Jason grunted in eerily Bruce-like fashion, passing Cass the money. “Aren't you supposed to be a helicopter parent on the first one.”

“See, you should’ve let me bet,” Dick said. “Woulda been ten dollars richer.”

“Last time we did that, you sided with Cass and made us lose like fifty bucks,” Tim said, remembering the event with surprising clarity and bitterness.

Damian shushed them. “I want to see Grayson free himself,” he said.

Bruce was eyeing him warily. “None of you are allowed to attempt this outside supervised training,” he said. “Actually, most of these you aren’t allowed to attempt anything you see here outside supervised training.”

Dick scoffed a little. “C’mon, they weren’t _that_ dangerous—”

“Did Grayson practise alone?” Damian demanded to know.

“Yeah, if you let Dick practise this alone when he wasn’t even in his teens, then we should be allowed,” Jason added with a shit-eating grin, always on the side that would give Bruce grief.

Cass gave Jason a strange look. _None of us live here anymore?_ she said.

“Cass, do I look like the kind of person whose safehouses have pools?”

“Practise in the bathtub,” Tim said.

“I bet ten bucks that Dick drowns,” Jason said.

“This is why you keep losing money, Jay,” Dick said. “Can I bet this time?”

"No," Cass said, placing her bet of thirty dollars in the centre. _And I bet that Bruce has to rescue him._

“Grayson obviously manages to free himself,” Damian said, placing a rather significant amount of money on the pile.

Bruce blinked. “What’s the minimum age for betting in this house? Damian, I don’t think you—”

“Father, you allowed Grayson to practise freeing himself handcuffs underwater unsupervised when he was four years younger than I am now. You have no grounds to argue about betting.”

Bruce sighed. “In my defence, Dick had mastered getting out of cuffs by then.”

Alfred let out a dignified snort. "Master Bruce had a hard time saying no to Dick when it came to what he considered mundane activities."

Dick laughed. “Yeah, B thought he was gonna be the cool older brother for a while there.”

Jason, Cass, and Tim looked at Bruce appraisingly.

 _Too many grey hairs,_ Cass said, at which Tim nodded in agreement. Dick offered her his fist to bump.

“Hey, genetically, this means Damian’s probably gonna go grey really early, too,” Tim said.

"Tim," Dick sighed. 

Damian scoffed. “Unlikely. Even if Father’s bloodline has weak genetics, my mother’s side is far superior to any of yours.”

“Damian,” Bruce and Dick said at the same time.

“You told me to be honest. I’m being honest. Now shush. Place your bet, Todd.”

“Goldie’s gonna free himself, but it’ll be because his ankles are so fucking tiny – sorry, Alfie – he’ll slide right out of the cuffs. Two bucks because Cass and Alfred cleaned me out.”

Dick huffed. “They were the _training_ cuffs that were made small so I could practise on them.” He leaned back against the couch. “I had mad skills even as a kid.”

Dick had been underwater for thirty seconds – he’d made Alfred hold a timer up on one corner of the camera so the ‘viewers’ could see – when Bruce in the video turned to the camera with a mildly worried look.

 _“When should we go in and get him?”_ he asked. _“He said to give him five minutes but he can only hold his breath for three and a half—”_ (“dude, how the fuck did you live to adulthood?”) _“—but he made me promise…”_

“That's adorable,” Tim said. "You didn't want to break a _pwomise_."

 _“Sir,”_ Alfred said. _“If he isn’t up in another twenty seconds, I will be going in myself.”_

Bruce sighed visibly, coming over to glance at the watch. _“No, he’ll be mad enough as it is without adding a half filmed performance to it. I’ll go in another thirty seconds.”_

They stood by the side of the pool, and the recording showed the watery blob of Dick as he floated at the bottom of the pool.

“Maybe we’ve actually been living with a ghost this whole time,” Jason commented.

Tim jabbed Dick in the shoulder, causing him to yelp as he turned and rubbed the appendage, looking up at Tim with betrayed eyes.

“Nope, he’s corporeal,” Tim said.

“Rising!” Cass said suddenly.

They turned to the screen. It’d been two minutes and twenty seconds.

“Wait, rewind,” Jason said. “I missed Bruce getting into the water.”

Tim obliged, rewinding it back half a minute.

_“It’s been two minutes,” Bruce said. “I’m going to wait another—”_

_“You will fish him out now, Master Bruce,” Alfred said firmly._

“Huh,” Dick said. “I didn’t know Alfred made you come into the pool. Were you planning on letting me drown, B?”

Bruce grunted. His past version jumped into the water immediately swimming down to where the dark shape that was Dick could be seen.

But in that instant, Dick floated upwards. In his hands were the cuffs, unlocked.

Tim grumbled as he handed the accumulated money to Damian. “Shouldn’t Cass get some, too? She said Bruce had to rescue him, and _technically_ he dived in.”

“Uh, no,” Dick said. “There was no rescuing. I’d finished with the cuffs in the first thirty seconds, and I was just floating under there waiting to see if they’d come in before I ran out of air. I was gonna give it another thirty seconds.”

Bruce stared at him. “Alfred,” he said. “I think Dick should be grounded.”

“I agree, Master Bruce.” Alfred fixed a stare at Dick, who raised his arms in the _I surrender_ pose. “But as grounding at this age is impractical, I believe cleaning out the pool will serve as punishment enough. I haven't had a chance to this autumn, and the leaves have left quite the mess.”

Dick gaped at them. “It was like over a decade ago! And I thought you guys knew!” Then he closed his eyes for a moment. “B, oh my god, is this why you made me practise breaking out of cuffs for like the whole month after this? I thought _that_ was the punishment.”

Bruce didn’t respond.

“Next tape!” Tim said brightly. “But let’s skip a few… what’s the last one? I wanna see the peak of your magician abilities.”

Dick straightened. “I cut Wally in half in that one!” he said excitedly.

Jason made a dismissive sound. “Isn’t that cheating? He can vibrate through the saw.”

“So?” Dick grinned. “As long as the audience doesn’t know what you’re doing, you can do anything.”

"The audience knows Wally is a speedster."

Dick was taller in this video. This was the last of fifteen tapes; not all of them were monthly performances – sometimes there was a gap of a fortnight in between. In this, there was a clear stage set up, wooden. It was similar to the stage in a puppet show, only much larger – Dick could stand at full height and still have room between him and the ‘ceiling’.

“Did you make a _stage?”_ Tim asked in awe. “Do you still have it?”

“Yeah, B brought it in one day, like a few shows in, when he realised that the magic thing wasn’t going away,” Dick said with a shrug.

“It was disassembled and stored in the garden shed a month or so after this,” Alfred said.

While most of the shows had been, on average, seven minutes, this one was apparently going to be twelve.

“You talk too much,” Damian said at the long intro.

“All part of showmanship, kiddo,” Dick told him. “Talking is like seventy percent of magic.”

This time, there was a larger audience: Clark, Diana, and Barry were present, as was Wally.

“I can’t believe you got _Wonder Woman_ to come to _that_ ,” Jason said, eye slightly wide.

“I think there was a meeting or something on that day?” Dick glanced at Bruce for confirmation, and Bruce nodded. “Wally was supposed to come anyway, so Barry tagged along, and Bruce was late arriving so I had him make up to me by bringing them with.”

By the looks on their faces in the video, it didn't seem like they'd needed much convincing. Hell, they'd probably been the ones suggesting Bruce bring them along to make it up to Dick.

Dick started off with a few simple card tricks, but they had the entire audience clapping, with whoops from Wally and Barry and a wolf whistle from Diana. Tim had to hand it to him – Dick knew how to work a crowd, and he had nimble fingers even as a kid.

“Teach me that,” he murmured.

“Course,” Dick replied, looking ecstatic.

“Teach me as well,” Damian said immediately.

“I’ll hold a class,” Dick said with a laugh. “Jay can help me. I taught him a couple tricks,” he said to the rest of them.

Jason took a long gulp of the lemonade. “Sure, why the fu—frickle frackle not.”

Dick onscreen had just asked Alfred to be his assistant. _“Now we’re going to do a magic trick called the Assistant’s Revenge,”_ he said. _“I’m gonna tie Alfred up here,”_ he drew back a curtain and revealed a wooden slab with restraints.

Alfred obligingly moved onto the stage. Tim stifled the first comment that came to mind at the sight of this younger version of the butler.

Jason had no such reserve. “Whoa,” he said. “Alfred had hair.”

Alfred ran a hand over his shiny scalp. “Yes, I did have quite the head of hair back in my day,” he said. “Perhaps I would still have some of it left if it hadn’t been for all your career paths.”

“Hey, at least I have _one_ safe job,” Tim protested.

Dick onscreen had done up the restraints and apparently just finished the end of a funny anecdote that had the audience smiling. _“Does anyone want to come up and test the restraints? B?”_

 _“I have faith in your tying skills, Dick,”_ Bruce said even as he got up to tug on the straps. _“Nice and firm.”_

 _“Thank you,”_ Dick said. There was a giddiness about him that Tim knew would normally lead to Dick bouncing about a little, but he was completely in control of his body in this scene. _“Now, watch carefully – but not too carefully, Uncle Clark. By the time I walk back around, Alfred and I will have changed spots.”_

A minute later, Alfred pulled the curtain back to reveal Dick now strapped to the wooden slab. There was a massive cheer from the audience.

“Aren’t there any experiments you failed?” Jason asked.

Dick gave him an offended look. “I wouldn’t be performing them if I hadn’t perfected them,” he said. “Alfred and I practised for _ages_ getting the timing right.”

The last act was sawing Wally in half.

 _Should’ve gotten popcorn,_ Cass signed to Tim, and he had to agree.

 _Bit late now,_ he signed, not wanting to incur Damian’s wrath upon himself. _I’ll make popcorn next time when we go through the whole set._

Wally was invited onto the stage, where a long box awaited him.

 _“And now,”_ Dick announced. In the background, a low drumroll played out. _“I will cut Wally in half!”_

Barry, Clark, and Diana did their duty and _ooh_ ed and _ahh_ ed dramatically. Dick’s grin widened. Wally got into the box, and it was closed. Dick brandished a saw—

“Is that a _real_ saw?” Tim asked.

“Course it is,” Dick said. “You think I was kidding around?”

“Barry did,” Bruce said with the ghost of a smile. “He went so pale I thought he was going to faint on the spot.”

“I think Barry’s main worry was that Wally would get it stuck halfway through himself when he vibrated and we’d have to explain to the hospital why there were no entry wounds.”

The saw went the whole way through and Dick then rolled the boxes away from one another so the audience could see the empty space. He then put the box back together and opened the lid, and Wally climbed out.

The two of them bowed.

 _How did you do that?_ Cass asked.

“I’ll tell you in private,” Dick said. “Can’t have my entire audience finding out my tricks.”

“So why was that your last performance?” Tim asked. “Looked like you were just warming up.”

Dick hesitated; if Tim hadn’t been watching him he wouldn’t’ve seen the quick glance towards Bruce.

“We went up against Two-Face after that,” Dick said. “It didn’t go so well. I was on bedrest for ages, so I missed two shows, and then I ran away for a while, so I missed the one after that, too.”

“You _ran away for a while?”_ Jason asked incredulously. “What does that even mean?”

Dick looked uncomfortable. He’d just opened his mouth to say something when Bruce spoke.

“After the incident with Two-Face, I fired Robin,” he said. “I thought it was best. So Dick left to solve the case himself.” His mouth was a thin line.

Jason let out a low whistle. “We,” he said, “are learning _so_ much shit today.”

“Quite,” Alfred said, waving the swear jar at him.

“You should put on another show,” Tim said. “Alfred said you still practise card tricks. And since you want to teach us, you can have the best student to be your assistant each month.”

Dick ruffled his hair. “I dunno, Timmy. It’s been a while.” He stood up and stretched, back arching much past where it should go. “I don’t have as much time to practise or learn new tricks as I did back then.”

Damian didn't say anything, but the look on his face – and the meaningful jerk of his head towards the bedrooms – meant that he was plotting something. Tim, having been around Damian trying to anticipate his next murderous move, knew that this meant they were going to be the ones mastering the element of magic tricks and putting on a performance.

He nudged Cass and kicked Jason to get their attention.

**Author's Note:**

> this is probably the first fic where I've written with the whole family for an extended period of time and i'm rly hoping i didn't forget any of them for too long. it's v hard to not give all the dialogue to tim and jason
> 
> Events referenced are all from Robin: Year One. 
> 
> This fic also has a post on [tumblr](https://fanfictiongreenirises.tumblr.com/post/190623897387/massive-thanks-to-batmanbingo2020-for-putting) (which is where my card is displayed lol)
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
